This application claims the priority of German Patent Application No. 199 55 221.5, filed in Germany on Nov. 17, 1999, the disclosure of which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
The present invention relates to a dashboard of a motor vehicle such as a passenger car. The dashboard comprises an upper or cover part which covers and is fastened at least partially to the housing upper part of a heating and/or air conditioning system housing.
In prior art dashboards, upper parts can be attached to components and front cross members only while windshields, which attach to the upper parts, have not yet been mounted. Once a windshield has been mounted, an upper part of a prior art dashboard can be disassembled only with considerable effort, if the windshield is not disassembled along with it. Therefore, any repairs to this upper part and components covered by the upper part require considerable assembly work.
An object of the invention is to render assembly and disassembly of such an upper or cover part easier.
This object is achieved by providing cover and housing upper parts with fastening structure and recesses which are positioned toward the top corner relative to the interior of the motor vehicle and which can be fitted together in this direction.
In this way, the cover part can be mounted relatively late during vehicle manufacture, i.e., after installation of the windshield. Thus, it is easy to make a relatively late change in design during vehicle manufacture, since different cover part shape and color variations are not made until then. Subsequent disassembly and repair are readily possible by simply replacing the entire cover part. It is easy to preassemble a functional unit and then to fix the design by means of the cover part. The design can also be changed later.
The cover part of the invention is a multilayered plastic molded part, which includes a substrate comprising EPP (expanded polypropylene) foam and a sound absorbing layer. In this manner, a cover part that absorbs sound in an especially advantageous manner is created. Hence, heating and air conditioning system noises and/or noises from other components are passed on only in a very reduced form into the interior of the vehicle.
Other objects, advantages and novel features of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of the invention when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.